Category Archives: Instruments

by | March 10, 2012 · 1:00 am

Sherlock Holmes, violist

A close reading of the canonical texts yields conclusive evidence that the celebrated sleuth was not a superb violinist—he was a superb violist.

The mistake was likely perpetuated by an early printer’s error. After all, Watson was a doctor, which means that even at best his handwriting was nearly illegible; he undoubtedly wrote “viola”, not “violin”. References to Holmes’s playing such as a “low, dreamy, melodious air” and “low melancholy wailing”—as well as to his habit of playing it “thrown across his knee”—clearly indicate that his instrument must have been a viola.

In fact, further textual references point to a historical mystery solved. Holmes referred to his instrument as a Stradivarius bought from a shady broker for only 55 shillings; surely this was the one Stradivarius viola, dated 1695, whose whereabouts has eluded instrument historians.

This according to “Quick, Watson, the fiddle” by Rolfe Boswell (The Baker Street journal, October 1948; reprinted in Journal of the American Viola Society online 26 [summer 2010] pp. 14–18).

Above, a classic depiction by Sidney Paget, Conan Doyle’s original illustrator; below, Jeremy Brett holds forth.

Related article: Dickens and music

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by | February 19, 2012 · 1:00 am

John Philip Sousa, violinist

While the composer of iconic marches is famous for directing the U.S. Marine Band and his own world-famous ensembles, John Philip Sousa’s early life as a violin prodigy is relatively unknown.

A sickly child, Sousa was home-schooled, and from the age of six his studies included lessons with an Italian violin teacher. He showed tremendous promise, and his father, a trombonist in the Marine Band, enlisted him as a Marine apprentice when he was 13; there he studied academics and several instruments.

Sousa went on to play the violin in orchestras and chamber groups, where he developed a taste for cutting-edge art music that he never lost; for example, his band performed excerpts from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger ten years before the opera’s first U.S. production.

This according to “John Philip Sousa’s violin: An American original” by Erin Shrader (Strings XXV/4:187 [November 2010] pp. 53–56). Above, Sousa’s childhood violin before (background) and after it was restored by John Montgomery. Below, Sousa’s Band performs Carl Friedemann’s Slavonic rhapsody.

Related article: Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

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by | February 12, 2012 · 1:00 am

Astérix and instruments

Astérix le Gaulois, a series of comics written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo between 1960 and 1999, received much acclaim for the attention to detail in Uderzo’s drawings of ancient civilizations.

Particularly interesting to an organologist are the illustrations of instruments—including carnyx, buccina, lur, bagpipe, harp, lyre, pipes, and drums—used by ancient Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, and Gauls.

In the free online resource Musical instruments of antiquity as illustrated in “The adventures of Asterix the Gaul” Daniel A Russell compares Uderzo’s illustrations to photographs of period instruments and comments on their acoustic qualities, performance techniques, and the roles they played in their respective societies, both in real history and as experienced by Astérix and his friends.

Above, Uderzo’s depiction of a banquet accompanied by a kithara, a double tibia, and a frame drum.

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by | January 11, 2012 · 1:00 am

Cristofori’s oval spinet

In designing his oval spinet, Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) sought to produce a relatively small instrument with long bass strings, two 8′ registers with a difference in timbre equal to that obtainable with a harpsichord, a symmetrical distribution of the tensions on the soundboard, and an aesthetically appealing and elegant appearance.

The longest string is placed in the center of the soundboard, while the strings move towards the acute in symmetrical alteration to the left and to the right; they therefore require a complicated action system for the movement of the key levers to be transmitted to the appropriate jacks.

All of the first register’s strings are arranged in order towards the back side, while the second register’s strings progress from the center towards the front side—it is the two registers, and not the sequence of notes, that are symmetrical with respect to the center. The selection of the registers is accomplished by sliding the keyboard, which activates a counter-lever system.

This according to “Bartolomeo Cristofori: La spinette ovali del 1690 / Bartolomeo Cristofori’s 1690 oval spinet” by Gabriele Rossi-Rognoni, an essay included in Bartolomeo Cristofori: La spinetta ovale del 1690—Studi e ricerche / The 1690 oval spinet—Study and research (Firenze: Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, 2002).

Above, a replica built by Tony Chinnery and Kerstin Schwarz. Below, a brief documentary on Cristofori and his instruments.

Related article: Liszt’s monster instrument

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by | January 4, 2012 · 1:00 am

A guqin resource

The open-access online resource John Thompson on the guqin silk string zither presents extensive materials on the guqin (古琴, “goo-chin”) including classic handbooks and commentaries; organological details; depictions of the guqin in art, poetry, and song; notation and sound files; playing instructions; analyses of performance practice; history and ideology; and links to other resources. Detailed information on the author is also included.

Below, Tao Zhusheng performs Guan shan yue (Moon over the mountain pass) in a 1977 film by Robert Garfias. The work is an evocation of the Tang-dynasty poem of the same title by Li Bai.

Related article: Robert Garfias: Ethnomusicology

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by | December 29, 2011 · 1:00 am

Air guitar and gender

 

Like real rock guitar playing, air guitar—miming electric guitar playing without an instrument—is heavily informed by gendered practices in rock, where the electric guitar functions as a signifier of masculine power and implied sexual prowess, and performing on it involves symbolic aggression and dominance.

Women air guitarists appropriate and disrupt rock culture’s consensus, undermining and subverting its gendered performance. This gender bending emphasizes women’s critique of rock culture’s masculinist attitude while asserting female power through the nonthreatening manipulation of an imaginary phallic symbol.

This according to “The girl is a boy is a girl: Gender representations in the Gizzy Guitar 2005 Air Guitar Competition” by Hélène Laurin (Journal of popular music studies XXI/3 (September 2009) pp. 284–303. Above and below, the multi-award-winning Nanami “Seven Seas” Nagura.

Related article: Sexual attraction by genre

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by | December 11, 2011 · 1:00 am

George Breed’s electrified guitar

On 2 September 1890 U.S. Navy officer George Breed (1864–1939) was granted a patent for a design for an electrified guitar (Method of and apparatus for producing musical sounds by electricity, patent no. 435,679); it appears to be the first application of electricity to a fretted string instrument.

Like the modern electric guitar and other similar instruments, Breed’s patent was based on a vibrating string in an electromagnetic field; but his design worked on very different musical and electrical principles (in particular the Lorentz force), resulting in a small but extremely heavy guitar with an unconventional playing technique that produced an exceptionally unusual and unguitarlike, continuously sustained sound.

Breed is now almost completely unknown as a musical instrument maker and designer; the significance of this instrument has largely remained underappreciated, and the circuitry unexamined.

This according to “George Breed and his electrified guitar of 1890” by Matthew Hill (The Galpin Society journal LXI [April 2008] pp. 193–203). Below, Dr. Hill discusses his research.

Related article: Ken Butler’s anxious objects

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by | November 14, 2011 · 1:00 am

The American wind band

In 2010 Scarecrow Press launched the series The American wind band with A history of the trombone by David M. Guion; the book is a comprehensive account of the development of the instrument from its initial form as a 14th-century medieval trumpet to its acceptance in various kinds of artistic and popular music in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Further entries in the series include The Tennessee Tech Tuba Ensemble and R. Winston Morris :  A 40th anniversary retrospective  by Charles A. McAdams and Richard H. Perry; and Bands of sisters :  U.S. women’s military bands during World War II  by Jill M. Sullivan.

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by | August 9, 2011 · 1:00 am

The first pipe organ recording

Capable of producing sounds beyond the range of human hearing, the pipe organ presents the ultimate challenge for sound recording. The first known attempt was the Columbia Records recordings of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir from late August and early September 1910, which included two organ solos played by John J. McClellan.

Probably the very first pipe organ recording was a test made on 30 August 1910, with McClellan playing Wagner’s Tannhäuser overture. Two enormous acoustic recording horns, five feet long and two feet wide, were suspended on a rope strung across the Tabernacle. Although the engineer deemed the recordings successful, apparently they were never approved for release.

This according to “The first recordings of organ music ever made” by John W. Landon (Theatre organ: Journal of the American Theatre Organ Society LIII/4 [July–August 2011] pp. 22–28). Above, the Mormon Tabernacle organ as it appeared at the time of the recording (two 15-foot wings were added in 1915).

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by | August 1, 2011 · 1:00 am

Mortuary pipe organs

The heyday of the mortuary pipe organ was the 1920s and 1930s; only a few have been built since World War II. A uniquely American product, the instrument’s characteristics departed significantly from those of the conventional church organ, despite its quasi-liturgical setting and function.

U.S. organ builders, long known for their innovations, met the stringent tonal, space, and cost requirements of funeral homes, cemetery chapels, and mausoleums so successfully that their instruments displaced the reed organ and piano. Over 600 mortuary organs were sold during this period, contributing significantly to the industry’s survival during the Great Depression.

This according to “The mortuary pipe organ: A neglected chapter in the history of organbuilding in America” by Robert E. Coleberd (The diapason XCV/7:1136, pp. 16–19). Above, the Estey Upright Minuette, front and back; containing 231 pipes, including a 16-foot open stop, the organ measures only 7’0″ x 4’8″ x 5’7½”.

Below, a recently restored mortuary pipe organ.

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